People make an organisation, but tools also make a significant difference
It’s integral to always be developing the latent talent at the heart of your business, while also improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction. Microsoft Teams continues to impress with its innovative features designed to streamline processes and refine user experience.
We thought we’d pick the brains of Jack Carr and Tom Hunter, who work tirelessly to make sure everyone is aware of just how great Teams is. Here’s how some of the standout features of Microsoft Teams can revolutionise your business operations, and what Jack and Tom think of them.
Streamlining customer support with Teams Queues
Efficient customer support is a cornerstone of successful business operations. The Teams Queues application offers a sophisticated solution for managing customer interactions. Jack explains, “The Teams queues application is a native way of embedding customer-facing interactions into the Teams client. It’s no overlays, there’s no pop-outs. This is Teams telephony as it was meant to be delivered.”
By integrating call queues directly into the Teams interface, businesses can enjoy greater visibility and management capabilities. This allows for real-time monitoring and adjustments, significantly improving customer service. Tom adds, “You get all that visibility of reporting available to you within the Teams client. You can see what queues of mine are performing well, and maybe you know which ones need a little bit of work.”
Maximising productivity with Intelligent Recap
In the era of back-to-back meetings, staying on top of action items can be challenging. Microsoft Teams’ Intelligent Recap feature uses AI to summarise meeting content, guaranteeing that important information is not lost. Jack highlights, “It extracts key points and action items, making the follow-up process more efficient and reducing the time spent on manual notetaking.”
This feature not only saves time but also mitigates the risk of human error. Tom underlines its importance: “It alleviates, takes away that sort of human error aspect of it. AI itself is an amazing thing, but we ultimately don’t want it to take away from someone’s day-to-day living. With utilising something like it for this, it can be done in seconds when we’re all on calls.”
Refining remote work with Augmented Reality Backgrounds
Tom recalls times still in recent memory: “It’s almost taking me back what happened during the pandemic where everyone was at home and those working from home would have the kids or the dog or whoever in the background shouting and screaming,”
So how can Microsoft Teams help? Maintaining a professional appearance during video calls is essential, especially in a remote work setting. Microsoft Teams’ augmented reality for backgrounds manages lighting and virtual backgrounds more effectively, ensuring a professional look regardless of your physical environment.
Improving call quality with Advanced Audio-Video Controls
Clear communication is critical in any business setting, and we’re not just saying that because we’re a communications company. The audio-video controls in Microsoft Teams give users better control over their call quality, enhancing the overall meeting experience. “Voice isolation is quite an impressive thing,” Jack notes. “Teams is going to be able to cater for the environment that you’re in. It can take out all that noise that’s going to be really distracting for anybody else in a meeting.”
Tom further explains, “The technology itself recognises what’s called a voice profile and uses it to transmit across the call that you’re on. It cuts out background noise or voices it doesn’t recognise. All powered by AI, which is incredible.”
Simplifying information access with Discover Feed
Keeping up with updates across multiple teams and channels can be overwhelming. The Discover Feed in Microsoft Teams simplifies this by consolidating updates into a single, easy-to-digest feed. Jack shares his experience: “It’s the news feed for everything that’s happening in all the channels that you’re in, in a sequential order. So, if you need to see from Monday what has happened, what has happened in my business across these channels, what updates have been posted, you can catch that up in a really succinct way.”
Tom adds, “That means you’re not missing anything. Obviously, it’s far easier to read, and you’re not having to trawl through all the actual teams themselves to find it. It saves just a lot of time and a lot of hassle.”
Enhancing call routing with customisable preferences
The ability to customise call routing preferences based on internal or external origins is another feature that can elevate operational efficiency. “Depending on how you view a job role, you might treat calls from outside of your business to calls from colleagues, or anybody really within your organisation separately,” Jack explains. This flexibility ensures that priority calls are always handled appropriately, improving response times and customer satisfaction.
Tom reflects on his personal experience, “I’m very guilty of this where any sort of call coming in, internal or external, whether I’m waiting for a call or not, I will always answer whatever comes in. Having this where you can, for example, are on the move like we often are, to be able to say, right, that anything internal forwarded to voicemail just know I could deal with it when I move about.”
Microsoft Teams for the win!
Teams is about transforming the way businesses operate. From improving customer interactions, to enhancing remote work and streamlining information access, these features offer substantial benefits that can drive efficiency and productivity. By leveraging these innovations from Microsoft Teams, businesses can stay ahead in the competitive landscape, ensuring both operational excellence and superior customer experiences.